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An extensive advertising campaign molded the image of success and quality for BMW in the minds of Japanese. BMW sweetened the cars' high prices by reducing the interest rates on its auto loans. The company has found ready buyers in a new breed of consumers, who, as BMW Salesman Akio Iio puts it, "want to express their individuality in the vast mass of Japanese car owners." Often BMW buyers are professional people, doctors or dentists, or such entrepreneurial types as designers and inventors. Many are women who want a second family car or their own auto to indicate their success in the business world. "Surprisingly," says Hamawaki, "the Japanese automakers were not marketing to this new and growing segment of individualists. We nurtured and stimulated this demand."
The local giants are starting to respond. Honda, among others, is adding sportier, more expensive cars at the top of its line, a development that does not seem to concern BMW. "We welcome the competition," says Hamawaki, "because it generates interest in the prestige cars. The more they sell, the more we sell."
BMW's brisk sales in Japan make the performance of American automakers seem $ all the more dismal. U.S. models were once the leading imports, but Japanese consumers became dissatisfied. Explains a dealer who used to sell American cars: "At one time an American car was a statement of quality, but sadly it is no longer." In 1980 U.S. companies sold 11,058 cars in Japan, but by 1986, the total was down to 2,345, or just about equal to the number of BMWs snapped up in March alone. To reverse that trend, Americans may have to take a few lessons from BMW on how to sell snow to Eskimos.